


Whispers in the Wind

by twyly56



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A Messed Up Boy Heals, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Ain't No One Gonna Hurt His Baby, Baby Harry Potter, Credence Ages Kind of Funny So He Still Looks Twenty, Credence Barebone Deserves Better, Credence Barebone Gets a Hug, Credence Barebone Gets a Little Buddy, Credence Barebone Heals, Credence Barebone Lives, Credence Barebone Needs a Hug, Credence Sort of Unofficially Adopts Little Harry, Credence Takes Care of Harry, Credence Trying to Raise a Child, Cute Harry Potter, Cute Kids, Eventual Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Friendship is Magic, Harry Potter was Raised by Other(s), Hogwarts, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Maledictus Nagini, Not Canon Compliant - Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Obscurial Credence Barebone, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Movie 1: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Pre-Hogwarts, Protective Credence Barebone, Raising Harry Potter, Self-Esteem Issues, Young Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 06:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17637323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twyly56/pseuds/twyly56
Summary: Credence finds a baby just sitting on a doorstep in the middle of the night, and it's cold. He doesn't know what to do, so he sort of takes it with him.





	1. Chapter 1

It was cold. It was very cold. Why did the cold worry him so much? Was it the cold, or just the absence of heat that worried him? Not knowing bothered him. Everything bothered him. He was scared. It was cold, and not warm, and he was scared. Did he even want to bring up the fact that everything felt  _off_. His ears were ringing in this weird way. His head felt dizzy. Everything was moving too fast, yet nothing moved at all. His eyes were still shut, shielding him from the rest of the world. There was a wash of light behind his eyelids, and he twitched in discomfort. 

He cracked his eyes open and almost immediately regretted it as white light flooded his vision. He blinked, once, twice, three times. The first thing he saw was a dark color covering everything above him, pale white stars illuminating the night sky and a half moon glistening up next to them. He realized that something cold was covering him and under his body, pressing into his skin. He sat up even as his head spun nauseatingly, making him dizzy and off balance. He blinked again, and he saw a pair of people in tight clothes jog past him, chatting to each other. It sounded like a British accent, at least. They didn't seem to notice him. 

Ugh. What year was it this time? His Obscurus sometimes went wild and made him lose decades to flying around, fire and darkness burning out of him. The first time that had happened, he had panicked. By now, it was easier to prevent it from doing that, but he still lost control at times. Credence pushed himself to his feet, dusting off his scuffed black trousers and torn clothes that made him look like a ragamuffin. His feet kind of ached, and his legs felt like jelly. He shook his head to clear it, taking in his surroundings. His ears pricked as he heard a strange sound, like the rustling of blankets. He frowned. 

He turned his head, and his eyes landed on a medium sized basket with blankets creeping out of the sides. Credence took a step closer to the basket, and then he saw the baby. It was awake, probably from the cool autumn air, and restless. It looked up at him when he peered into the basket, bright green eyes blinking. He felt his Obscurus quiet down for the first time in years, and that raging fire in his chest dimmed to a dull flickering flame. Credence was stunned, staring back at it with wide eyes. The baby shifted in its basket, moving almost into a sitting position. Messy black hair peeked out over its little head. 

"Da?" the baby babbled at him. It could speak then, so it was not a newborn.

That was a bit of a relief. If it was a newborn, how was he supposed to feed it? Didn't they need mother's milk? It had the most disgruntled look on its little face. He thought it might be a boy, but he hadn't been around babies enough to really say. His sisters had been young when they were adopted, too, but they weren't babies. He looked at the blanket and then saw the letter. It was addressed to a Mrs. P. Dursley, Number 4, Privet Drive. He quickly decided to take a quick peek, and he reached to down to pick it up. The baby let out an unhappy sound when Credence took the letter of him, and he started to cry. Oh no. 

He panicked and scooped up the baby, black shadows swirling wildly as his body practically dissipated. He found himself at a Walmart open 24 hours a week, sans one baby basket, and plus one screaming baby. There were not a lot of people in the store, but it was a surprisingly larger amount of people then he thought there would be, and the store was  _big_  and he had no idea where the baby stuff was and the baby was  _still_ crying. Credence bounced him up and down a little, shifting him in his arms and more onto his left hip. The baby wailed, and he winced. 

No one else seemed to appreciate the crying baby in his arms, the shoppers sending him sideways looks. He grabbed a cart and steered it one handed and searched for a couple of minutes before he found the baby aisle. He knew a little bit about babies, but he really really didn't know enough. He had to read the labels to try to figure out what he needed. And he wasn't entirely certain what all of those words meant, but he was sure that babies drank milk. Or something like that. Was this powdered thing close enough? The baby looked big enough for eating squishy food, so he grabbed a handful of the small jars in the food section and awkwardly placed them in his cart. 

He was wheeling the little cart towards the checkout area before he remembered that babies needed clothes, and the baby was only wearing what was in that basket with it. He had to wheel back to the clothes aisle and pick out the first outfits he could find. The fashion in this decade was bizarre. There were too many different colors to pick from, so he just grabbed blues and greys, regardless of the various designs or animals on them, with little stocking things that seemed to go over the baby's feet, tossing them into the cart on top of the food. 

"Aww, he's so cute. What's his name?" a woman asked him. His head snapped up, and he froze, holding the baby firmly against his chest. 

"Uh..." Credence fumbled for the piece of paper that had been on the baby's chest in the basket. He squinted at the crinkled paper. "Harry. He's my... little brother," he said. The woman gave him a skeptical look. He smiled awkwardly. "I'm Credence. Nice to meet you. Have a nice rest of your night."

He turned his cart around the corner and glanced around. There was no one in the immediate vicinity. His Obscurus seemed to get tired of him being substantial again, so Credence felt himself turn to black shadows. He regained his senses when he was sitting in the flat he had been staying in before his Obscurus had gone berserk, the small mountain of baby supplies piled next to him with the baby himself still in his arms. Harry had quieted down and was now playing with the messy tie around Credence's neck. Credence blinked. 

"Da?" Harry babbled. 

"Oh, no, I'm not your father," Credence tried to tell him. 

"Da," the baby insisted, tugging at his tie. Oh dear. 

"No. _Credence,_ " he said. 

"Da," Harry responded stubbornly. 


	2. Chapter 2

Credence got around two hours of sleep. Perhaps two and a half. He supposed it was a good thing he was used to not sleeping well. It was not even that Harry stayed up all night crying. Now, of course, he  _did_  cry. A lot. He spent what felt like at least an hour crying nonstop at about three a.m., and Credence took to walking around his room bouncing him carefully in his arms, trying to calm him down and asking him questions he couldn't really answer. The baby doesn't seem like he can speak more than a couple of words at a time. 

He really had no idea that babies could scream this loud. Credence completed his third circuit of the living room, feeling exhausted to his very bones, the black haired baby cradled to his chest. It was impressive how loud the wails got. He was certain every person in the building could hear this sobbing baby because he was beginning to go a bit deaf. Hopefully, they wouldn't complain to him about noise. He didn't really enjoy talking to people in most occasions. He had had... less than pleasant experiences. 

"Shh, shh," he tried again, rubbing what he attempted to make comforting circles into Harry's back.

The baby sobbed, made a little hiccuping sound, and then resumed wailing, bereft. What was he doing wrong? 

"Are you hungry? Do you need a diaper change? Does something hurt? What is wrong with you? Please," he murmured. He didn't speak baby, and he didn't understand what was making Harry cry. 

Credence didcheck his diaper, and he didgive him a bottle of that powdered formula, but he just wouldn't quiet down. He kept going on and on until it felt like it was hurting his little throat to keep producing so much noise, and Credence felt bad for him. At one point, he lay down with him on his chest and started rubbing soothing circles on his back, whispering incoherent stuff at him, and it seemed to calm him down. So he kept doing that. He rubbed the baby's back and grabbed his tiny feet and his little hands, trailing his hand over the back of his head, ruffling his messy black hair, and Harry went practically silent, teary eyes blinking sleepily, red blotched face relaxing.   
  
"Huh," Credence whispered to himself, feeling victorious.

Once Harry fell asleep, he was left with him bundled on top of him, splayed like the world's bluest, most adorable frog, and Credence found himself unable to move for fear of waking him up. He was laying on his back, still and stiff as a board, for about an hour, breathing carefully, hands at the ready so he wouldn't accidentally fall off him or something. Once he felt certain enough that the baby won't wake up, he cautiously moved him to on the mattress next to him, carefully and let out a quiet sigh, rearranging his limbs to get some sleep. Harry was curled up in an almost ball sort of shape, all fetal, pressing up against his side. 

Great. Now Credence wasn't going to be able to sleep at all. As adorable as Harry was like that, he now had to deal with the terror of accidentally crushing him if he moved too much. Though, to be perfectly honest, he was just amazed that his Obscurus hadn't gone crazy over the fact he was so stressed out over this whole thing. It was barely noticeable in his chest, and he felt a zen like calm settling over it. He would have said that it liked the baby, too, but that was just implausible. It was essentially a dark magic parasite in his body. How could it possibly feel affection for a child? 

 

He ended up falling asleep at around six, and when he woke up one or two hours later, to the loud clanging of pots that could be heard from his neighbor's apartment next door - thin walls - he could not shake the sense of dread that was choking him until he checked on Harry. He checked that he was still breathing, and that he was not bruised or broken in any way. The baby woke up by the time he was done inspecting him, long fingers still holding onto one of his little legs. Harry blinked at him with those bright green eyes and yawned, big and scrunching up his small face, and he kicked with the leg Credence was holding.

"And good morning to you, too," Credence said quietly.

He was tired and achy from what he assumed was sleeping two long hours on the same position, neck bent and arms next to Harry, almost touching the baby just to check that he was there, and his long legs were trying to bracket awkwardly around his little body. Harry leaned up, and his tiny arms went around Credence's neck, his fingers finding their way into his short hair. Credence barely held back a flinch at the unexpected touch. 

"Da!" Harry babbled happily. "Da, Da, Da." 

"Oh," was all that he could say. It made something in his chest feel kind of fuzzy and warm. It was nice. Credence felt himself begin to smile. The expression felt odd on his face. He guessed it had been a long time since he actually smiled. "Are you hungry, Harry?" 

"Da!" the baby said. 

"Okay," Credence murmured. "I'll take that as a maybe."

He shifted his legs and pulled Harry up into his lap. Credence rose into a standing position, resolutely ignoring the crick in his neck, and he shuffled over to the pile of baby things. He set Harry down on the floor, making sure he was sitting up, before he rummaged through the drawers in the kitchen for a spoon. When he stumbled back into the living room, he blinked when he saw the baby on his back with his stocking covered foot in his mouth. Was that normal? 

"Hi. I brought you something to eat, so you don't have to eat your feet," Credence told him. He knelt beside the baby and carefully pried his foot from his mouth. Harry blinked up at him.

He unscrewed the lid from the jar of food and scooped out a spoonful of the orange goo. He brought it near Harry's face. Harry eyed it speculatively. "It's good. I promise." He poked Harry's mouth with the spoon, and the baby reflexively opened his mouth. Credence pushed the spoon into his mouth, and Harry's eyes widened. He ate what was on the spoon much to Credence's relief. 

"Da!" Harry babbled. "Mo'!" 

"Uh, alright. Does that mean 'more'?" Credence asked. He gathered up another spoonful of the baby food and fed it to the baby. A little bit of the orange goo dribbled out of the side of Harry's mouth, and Credence wiped it off with his sleeve. 


	3. Chapter 3

After these past few months, his hair had gotten sort of long. Not long like a girl's or even to his shoulders, but it was longer than it had ever been before. He just kept forgetting to cut it, but he found that he actually liked how his hair looked right now. It was a bit wavy, even curly at some parts, hanging over his forehead and lightly brushing over his eyebrows, curling over the tips of his ears and the back of his neck. His Ma had always cut his hair painfully short, leaving just these straight edged bangs that were barely an inch long. It was oddly satisfying to see how his hair looked when he just left it alone. 

Harry seemed to like it a lot, too, for some reason. He would play with the ends of his hair, tugging on them with his little fingers and giggling. The baby was playing on the floor at the moment, pushing the rubber ball that Credence had found him around and bouncing after it, making excited baby noises. Credence found himself smiling at Harry. It was fairly cute. He watched Harry for a few more moments before he walked over to him, leaning down to pick up the baby. Harry squealed happily when he got picked up, looking up at Credence with his bright green eyes. 

"Daddy!" Harry babbled, tugging at his shirt collar with tiny fingers. That seemed to be Harry's new favorite thing to call him. At this point, he had given up on trying to get the baby to not call him that. Harry was stuck on it. And it was kind of sweet. He found himself liking it more than he would ever admit. 

"Hi, Harry. Want to go shopping with me?" Credence asked him. 

"Daddy!" the baby said. 

"Alright. Let's go then," Credence told Harry. 

He pushed open the door and carried the baby out with him, shutting the door behind them with a click. His Obscurus took over, turning him black and shadowy, and he heard Harry make an excited sound. His feet crunched in the gravel of the parking lot as he rematerialized, and he looked down to make sure that Harry was alright. The only thing different about the baby, to his utter relief, was just that his hair was sticking up in every which direction. Credence patted it down with a hand to no avail, and Harry giggled. 

"Again!" the baby demanded. 

"You liked that, huh?" Credence said, feeling a bit surprised. "Well, not right now. We have some stuff to do. Okay?" 

Harry nodded like he understood him and wrapped his arms around the Credence's neck, resting his head on his shoulder. When they got inside, Credence got a cart from the little alcove area and steered it closer to the As he put Harry in the seat, he felt the baby grip his sleeve of his coat. He let Harry hold onto his sleeve as he steered the cart. He made his way to the clothing section first and quickly got lost in a sea of clothes. Credence felt overwhelmed. Harry just stared up at him, waiting for Credence to do something. Credence looked around. Where on earth was he supposed to start?

"Can I help you, sir?" a female voice asked. Credence turned around, stiffening, and almost sighed in relief at the sight of a female worker. He nodded, the fringe of his dark hair falling into his eyes. He absently pushed it out of his face. 

"Yes, I need help finding clothes for this little person," Credence told her. 

He gestured to the black haired baby swinging his little feet in the seat on the cart. Her expression softened at the sight of Harry, going all gooey like he noticed people tended to do around babies. Harry waved his little hand at her, and the woman smiled. 

"His mother died in a fire recently, and it burned down the house," Credence lied. He didn’t even have a chance to say anything else before the employee interrupted him.

"Oh, you poor thing! And you need to replace the things you lost, right?" she said. The woman began to sort through the children’s clothes. "I'm guessing Mom was the one who did all the shopping?" Credence nodded as she held up a few shirts. "Let me just check to see what size he is." As she started holding up shirts and pants to measure against the baby, she continued talking to him. Credence felt a bit baffled. "It must be so hard being a single father. I'm sorry for your loss." 

"Uh, thank you," Credence responded awkwardly. He wasn't even... whatever. If they thought he looked like Harry's father, he wasn't going to correct them. It was easier than actually explaining how he had gotten Harry. 

"What's his name?" the woman asked him. 

"It's Harry," Credence replied. "I had some clothes for him, but, uh, he grew." 

"Oh, I know what you mean. They just grow like weeds at this age, don't they?" the woman said. "How old did you say he was?" 

"I didn't. He's..." Credence eyed Harry for a moment and looked back at the woman. "He's two," he told her. 

"Ah, the terrible two's. I feel for you," the woman said. 

"He is not terrible," Credence felt inclined to say. "He's actually pretty well behaved for a baby." 

The woman just smiled at him, shaking her head. Once she had got the right sizes, the woman flitted around the children's section to grab some clothes and offered them to Credence. Credence took them gratefully. There were about seven shirts and pairs of pants, and she had thrown in some socks and underwear. 

"I figured a week's worth of clothes is a good place to start. That should be everything you need for now. If you need anything else, feel free to come back and ask for me. I'll be happy to help!" the woman told him. "I'm Elaine by the way." Credence tipped his head at her.

"Thank you again, Elaine. I do not know what I would have done without you," he said politely. 

"You're welcome, sir," Elaine replied. The woman leaned over his cart and smiled at Harry, ruffling his already messy black hair. "Goodbye, Harry! I hope to see you again soon!"

"Bye bye!" Harry said. He waved his little hand again. 

"Have a nice day, ma'am," Credence told her. He steered the cart down the clothes section toward a secluded area. Harry let out a happy shriek when black shadows whipped them away. 


End file.
